The production of newspapers generally comprises the steps of printing the paper, slitting, longitudinally folding the paper, effecting a transverse fold in either a rotary or jaw folder and then depositing the folded papers on a belt conveyor in imbricated form by means of a rotary fly conveyor, or fan for transport to the mail room. As the operating speeds of modern day presses are quite high it is not unusual to have newspapers exiting from the folder at speeds up to 2300 fpm. The fans or folder flys which have outwardly extending usually arcuately shaped fingers attached to a central hub, define pockets into which the newspapers are received for delivery to the usual belt conveyor that is located beneath the fly. Because of the high rates of travel of the newspapers they tend to strike the bottoms of the pockets and bounce; an occurrence which is undesirable because, among other things, the newspapers are laid unevenly spaced on the receiving conveyor.
It is therefore a primary object of this invention to provide an improved newspaper rotary fly conveyor which insures uniform laydown of the papers on a receiving conveyor.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide an improved newspaper fly conveyor in which means is provided to slow down the entry of the newspapers into the receiving pockets of the fly.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an improved newspaper fly conveyor wherein gripping means is provided in each newspaper receiving pocket on the fly to hold the newspapers against bouncing when arriving at the bottom of the pockets.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide an improved newspaper rotary fly conveyor having spring biased grippers in the newspaper receiving pockets.
A still further object of this invention is to provide an improved newspaper fly conveyor in which positive stripping means is provided to remove newspapers from the pockets of the rotary fly.